Purpose of Religion: Primacy of The Dignity of The Person

"Systems are made for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of man which is self-development, is above these systems." - Clifford Hugh Douglas, “Economic Democracy”.

I wouldn’t say that we have a right to life - life seems to happen or it doesn’t. It is a flow-force that is not bound to any right, or wrong, or left, or obligation; it just doodles along with whatever materials at hand, in accordance with geometrical laws and becomes a smudged and tangled mess when there is congestion. It flows there where it can, and leaves for dead there where it can’t.

Pope John Paul II, in 1991, (for the 100th Anniversary of Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum) made a list of the basic human rights and does include the right to life (and hence prohibits abortion); he goes on to list the right to develop one’s intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; which is another tricky one for the abstract term “truth”.

I suppose the Pope was trying to tap into that truth that pre-exists to life. We enter then the stuff of the Logos. A truth that continues also where time does not. Like, say, in our flashes of inspiration or dream-world imaginations, or prophecies of the untimed future. And life eternal.

For the sake of trying to admire the Pope’s speech, let us take it to mean something like, we all should be given the opportunity to find ourselves or know ourselves (gnoothi seauton) and educate ourselves. Thus advanced, we subsequently narrow the discrepancy in intellectual levels to become a more homogenous community of mankind and diminish the authority we give to powerful autocratic systems that don’t benefit the evolution of man. This, however, is easier said than done. Although, against the backdrop of recent (past two millenia of) history, we aren’t doing too badly.

If we compare Pope John Paul to his Medieval predecessors we are doing remarkably well! Especially the Church. Allow me to state, at this point, that this post is not going to extoll the Catholic faith (in fact I am not very fond of this denomination with its dependency on the papacy, which is an exclusively male chauvenist institution). But I am ever ready to track the veins through which positive human evolution runs, at least in theory.

At the same time, I like to monitor in how far religion still can (and where it does) effect positive change. This is tricky to do, since the very word “religion” has become void of meaning.

We cannot ignore that many western powerful nations are first and foremost de facto Christian - and more often than not lead by practicing Christians. All the Western monarchies still technically exist “in the name of God”, even if they have no power to execute any presumed will of this God.

(I leave to one side here how people in power may also be Muslim in Western Europe. This doesn’t have much bearing upon this particular examination, which takes a look only at the significance of religion as inherited institution.)

To illustrate how Christianity is unable to see itself separate from worldly matters, in another speech, it rings remarkably secular when the self-same pope reminds us that:
"The world of finance is also a human world [ . . .], [s]o see especially to it that you may bring a contribution to world peace with your economy and your banks and not a contribution — perhaps in an indirect way — to war and injustice!" (John Paul II, homily at Flueli, Switzerland, June 14, 1984.)

Indeed, as compared to the days of Inquisitions and Crusades, Conquistadores and Missionaries, it is only more recently that the Roman Catholic faith has been forced to take a lesser interest in pecunary matters; albeit there is still (also with the current more Franciscan style Pope) a baroque (dare I say extravagant?) air of royalty around the Pope on his throne as representative of the King of Heaven on Earth. A loin-cloth or callico tunic and a meditation cushion would have sufficed, if it was up to Jesus. (I am not even going to dip one toe into the Catholic Families that rule half the financial world hand in hand with the Jewish ones: who says religion is dead?)

Of course, the Vatican see is still as politically minded as ever and if the Social Doctrine of the church is anything to go by it cannot choose to be otherwise. The crux of its doctrine is applied religion, which extends into the economic field upon which, according to Pope Benedict XV (in office:1914-22), ” the salvation of souls is at stake.” Pope Pius (1922-39), too, recognised that the burdens of an economic life (including hunger and debt) with all its social ramifications (of ungodly contacts) compromised man’s attention towards working on his eternal salvation. If you can’t beat them (turn people away from mundane affairs) you will have to join them.

It must be on the weekly recurring agenda: how best to oversee Christian conduct and permeate society with the Christian teachings? It is not an agenda any of us can afford to relegate to stuffy (or corrrupt) churches, really, as a side-line consideration. If we understand Christianity in its true sense (a hygiene of soul) we really must become more actively engaged with the principles of religion as creative community building tools. But how to give them a new form that goes deeper to the core of man specifically, over and above ecological awarenessand humanitarian concerns? Is it not a "religious" matter when it comes to facing the death of mankind, inevitable if not in any directly "forseable future"? I mean, are we not going to tie ourselves to some larger than life understanding of "who we were" as we near the end of time and can we not know this "God-man" already now in the future before we meet Him in the past?

We seem to have gone from "One True Church" (as purportedly instructed by Jesus Christ and founded by St.Peter, the first Pope) to a plethora of rivalling factions ever since Luther nailed his 95 grievances to the cathedral door in Wittenberg.

Protesting, even at such lengths, prooved a bit futile. It was more a sign of the times that people were ready to start thinking of themselves than an innovating brain-wave. Luther was a bit of a poop-fetishist and somewhat ambivalent about Rome towards the end of his life so he may not have necessarily seen some great light himself. (Info on Luther from "A World Lit Only By Fire" - available as audio-book for all you Steemian fans of Audiobooks I have encountered so far... there was one I vaguely recall). It was a good and necessary thing to question how instrumental any single institution might be to the salvation of all of mankind. But now what?

Sensible, independent, well-educated minds (fending for themselves) are rightly sceptical of all things religious in the modern, secularist, rational, scientific, liberal world. But make no mistake that capitalism is a fundamentally religiously organised system! It thrives on the greed for power and profit and the fear of death and suffering. It grows on speculations (things that have not even come to pass). It benefits the instated authorities.

While religion falls aways with an ever more bitter after-taste and the next generation wants to try something new, it seems we can only think of decentralisation as a counter-move. But that smacks of more protest.

Returning to the list of basic human rights of John Paul II, we find the term “free” used several times which may incline one to hope that these rights are intended to guarantee freedom but I don’t think they mean to as such. Rather the contrary. Our (Adamic) freedom seems to comes with rights which actually turn out to be necessities born out of that preceding (apriori and divine) Truth - which we are forever trying to define (with the help of the Pope).

This makes the doctrine much more about doing the right thing, walking the right path, and being right by being Christian. This is not easy for modern a-religious man to take on board. Enter the philosopher. Call in the back-up troops of the psychologists. Invite Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil, Dr.Spock and Dr. Seuss into your life…. It’s getting crowded in here and people are starting to faint or hit eachother on the head…. Is there an actual medic in the room, anyone?!

It can make for quite a snake-pit once money becomes the stake to play for. It detracts entirely from the person you are. It becomes undignified.

Are there no money-free zones? Let us return to John Paul II with the happy boding that man has “the right freely to establish a family ”by means of the responsible exercise of one’s sexuality”. He does not stipulate this exercise further here, and wouldn’t have to, for there is only one way to exercise it “repsonsibly” for the sake of procreation (hit the target and don’t miss). Yet, however free people may be decreed to be, the right alone does not establish a family for some barren couples. So much for having the right.

It feels to me that religion does not have much place in the private life which is of a more spiritual nature. It kicks back into significance with the third and fourth pillars of the Social Doctrine, subsidiarity and solidarity, which are necessary to protect the dignity of the person. Spirituality is very intimate, whereas religion is entirely a social construct full of general norms, universal values and many conventional agreements (from manners to customs).

I personally don’t “believe” in rights, much, since I have little dealings with them (the ones that make my life bearable have been pre-established before my birth!). Rights are like terms and conditions. Legal stipulations and as such they belong to the territories invented by the head.

Such "rights" are quite delusional in Taoist esoteric terms, where we can only be concerned with walking the walk and talking the talk. True, we need safe roads and freedom of expression to be able to live out this Right to (any kind of?) Life.

We cannot have social constructs without rights or the legal system to protect them. You might try something different by falling off the grid, but it tends to lead (when attempted en masse) to anarchy and other medieval sub-standards of living in the long-run. Coping without electricity is one thing, dying of appendicitis another, but advancing our consciousness collectively it is not.

The gist of the Social Doctrine which means to put a human measure, first and foremost, in place sounds laudable to me. As does too a striving for a fair society impelled by love. Where it becomes iffy is how this measure is guided by a truth as defined by the Catholic authorities. The underlying idea is that man is the living image of God, and albeit this again veers close to some kind of Truth, it can offer new scope to social institutions, which otherwise take Money for a God and become mechanical in service to a Machine God, gradually eradicating every notion of a living God which might just steer us towards the Truth, yet.

Anthroposophical Three-Fold Society aims for a similar human perspective (with similarly iffy outcomes). They all try to modify the Trias Politica (the separation of powers), I suppose, which is not a bad thing in the light of history. But nobody has developed an alternative for religion as a third arm, over and above the (iffy) freedom there is to be had in cultural expression. It has not occurred to anyone,really, that religion is supposed to set us free from cultural off-shoots which are mainly regurgitations from the previous (indoctrinated) generations. Can there be no new kind of religion as a seed bed for a new inner and spiritual life? That may replace cynicism and despair, hedonism and indifference?

Religion is a very tainted concept with too much bad press. But we are starving our souls on money and rights. Art and learning is running out of inspiration on a strictly secular platform. Populism and mindfulness are not the cement of future communities.

CLEARLY, so far, religion tends to subtract from any initiative to unite, and underperforms miserably at celebrating each individual as equally valuable. EVERY religon I know stands guilty as charged.

Assignment

Essays proposing an all new and improved Religious Power to be handed in, in print, in duplicate, with extra wide margins, before the end of the world.

Illustrations:

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Ecclesia
Rogier Van Der Weyden, “The Magdalen Reading”, 1445
MASTER of Flémalle, “The Werl Altarpiece (right wing)”, 1438
Robert Campin Mérode Altarpiece (right wing), c. 1427
& Mérode Altarpiece (detail) c. 1427
Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece, “ The Virgin Mary reading” c.1425
Robert Campin Mérode Altarpiece (centre), c. 1427
Georg Pencz (1500-1550), “The Triumph of Death on Time”
Lucas Cranach, “Damnation and Redemption", 1529
Gislebertus, “Last Judgment” (detail), 1130-45, Cathedral of Autun.
Gislebertus, “Eve”, c. 1130

Information on Social Doctrine in reference to economical reform

Far more interesting: blog post on Hildegard of Bingen